AP Film Studies: To The Races

Do the Right Thing kicks off a new race talks series.

FIGHT THE POWER: Best brass knuckles in Bed-Stuy.
By AP KRYZA

If you didn’t know it came out in 1989, you might mistake Do the Right Thing for a present-day response to gentrification, racial tensions and police brutality. The film’s debates over a white-owned restaurant in a black neighborhood—not to mention its depiction of an unarmed black man’s death at the hands of the police—still strike a chord today, particularly in the wake of the Ferguson riots.
Hollywood Theatre
Karl Show! (Starring Jason)

In the future, Lamb says he hopes to steer the series in more unexpected directions: to address, for example, the buddy-cop dynamic of the Eddie Murphy-Nick Nolte comedy 48 Hours, the debate over Jennifer Beals' racial identity in Flashdance, or the self-importance of Crash. "I want to bring the community together to share an experience," says Lamb, a 45-year-old Seattle transplant, "even if it's a little 'kumbaya' to address things in that way.” Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Monday, Sept. 22. 


Also Showing: 

  1. The Academy Theater commemorates the 20th anniversary of The Shawshank Redemption with a screening that may or may not (but is very likely not to) include sippin’ beers on the roof. Academy Theater. Sept. 19-25.
  1. The Omega Man, a riff on Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, features Charlton Heston as the last man on Earth, who uses his newfound privacy as an excuse to cruise around an abandoned city in a convertible shooting vampire-zombie-druid thingies who look like they have leprosy. Laurelhurst Theater. Sept. 19-25.
  1. Film historian Eddie Muller takes over the Hollywood with Noir City, three days of femmes fatales, hard-boiled detectives and dangers lurking in the shadows. The incredible lineup ditches the well-known for a deep-cut roster of capers, including Humphrey Bogart’s little-seen Deadline USA and the searing Too Late for Tears. Hollywood Theatre. Sept. 19-21. See hollywoodtheatre.org for full schedule.
  1. The (Re)Discoveries series continues with 1946’s My Darling Clementine, John Ford’s classic retelling of the gunfight at the OK Corral. No huckleberries are involved. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Friday-Saturday, Sept. 19-20.
  1. The Clinton Street continues its 100th anniversary celebration with 1943’s Lassie Come Home, which screened at the theater in 1944. In honor of the past, attendees 12 and under will pay a mere 20 cents for entry, the price listed on the vintage playbill that inspired the screening. Clinton Street Theater. 2 pm Saturday-Sunday, Sept. 20-21.
  1. People are invited to vocally massacre the legendary songs of The Sound of Music at a sing-along event complete with costume contest. It’s like karaoke, but with lederhosen. Cinema 21. 7 pm Fridays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays, Sept. 19-28.
  1. Night Movies presents a double feature of Fight Club and The Warriors, which will hopefully begin with impromptu bare-knuckle boxing and, later, people forced to bop their way home with stomachs full of poutine. Cartopia. 9:30 pm Sunday, Sept. 21.

WWeek 2015

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